Upgrading for Skyrim

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teletran8

2[H]4U
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Hello everyone I wanted your input.

I'm dying to play Skyrim. I also LOVE Race Driver Grid, Team Fortress 2, Oblivion all its add-ons, and I still haven't finished Duke Nukem Forever and Metro 2033. I also want to pick up Counter Strike GO, Batman Arkham City and NBA 2k12. These are the games I want to play @ a high FPS. I really enjoy playing a optimized map like BarnBlitz in TF2 for example because I always am @ 100-120+fps. I'm not one of these people that think maxed out gameplay is 1600/1080p @ 60 Hz, a game running @ 60Hz is like microstutter with blurry gameplay all day to me. (headache) I will also play all these games @ 8xMSAA or 16xCSAA except Metro will prob be Maxed out with AAA.

I play on a 80 inch projector that does 120Hz refresh rate with 1280x720. My current motherboard does not have SLI ability. I'll be matching this up right now with a Athlon X4 CPU @ 3.875GHz.

I've just been waiting and waiting for Nvidia 6xx series, but I can't wait anymore because Skyrim is releasing soon, and also I could use better fps in alot of my older games and newer ones. For instance TF2,GRID, Oblivion are usually in the 60-120 fps range, but I really despise anything below 75 fps. Metro plays at like 30-50 everything maxed except AA. (I really can't play the game because as soon as firefight begins I'm in the low 30's sometimes 20's so I need like 50 fps minimum at worst if I want to really enjoy it.

So there are various upgrades I could choose, I'll show you what I'm thinking you guys tell me what you think I should go for. Also as you notice I'm not really worried to much about DX11 because DX10+Physix in Metro looks great, and the games I play are all DX9 but Metro...also if Skyrim is DX9 and it took Mr. Howard 5 years between Oblivion to Skyrim. How long till the next installment? (5 more years?) Anyhow I just doubt DX11 is a must for me at this time(I don't see any games with DX11 that I'm falling out of my chair for or in the future), but I'm not opposed to getting a DX11 card, here goes. And another quick question do I need/should I get another 4GB system memory so I have 8GB total?

Zotac 570 GTX (comes with new Batman Arkum CIty coupon )300.00 + 4 GB DDR3 1333 30.00 = Total 330.00
570 GTX has 1.5GB memory with 260 GTX for phsyix.

ASUS AM3+ Sabertooth Mobo 185.00 + a second 260GTX for SLI 100.00 + 4GB DDR3 1333 30.00 = 315.00
I would run SLI 260GTX in this setup and possibly add another 260GTX for TRI-SLI. The motherboard has TRI-SLI support and 8 Sata HD ports.

EVGA 560GTX 2GB (comes with new Batman AC game coupon 245.00) + 4GB DDR3 1333 30.00 = 275.00
2GB might come in handy I dunno.

560GTX 1GB (comes with Batman AC game coupon) 190.00 + 4GB DDR3 1333 30.00 = 220.00
Is 1 GB enough for my settings/games sometimes I think it might be other times I question it?


Like I said my main goal is to get away from the 60-120 fps limit and end up hopefully 80/90-120+ constant in these games I understand Metro 2033 won't be as high hopefully 70-90 fps. What does everyone think?
 
The recommended specs were posted and because it is a direct console port, anything dual core cpu and Direct X 9 graphics card will work. You are not going to have any ground breaking graphically. What I am saying is don't use Skyrim as a basis for upgrading at all. I would use Batman Arkham City out of any of those to judge system performance.
 
You'll be playing Metro 2033 at almost absolute minimum settings if you want 70-90fps on a single graphics card.
 
Even at that resolution, samuel? I'd think he could at least play on medium with a 570 GTX.
 
Well, perhaps.

GTX560 standard @ 1280x720: Unified score 354
GTX560Ti @ 1280x720: Unified score 405
GTX570 @ 1280x720: Unified score 437.

The unified score doesn't really apply to the 560 in Metro 2033 though as it's architecture is too weak to get the same comparative frame rates as other games, so we'll maybe call it 300/350 instead of 354/405.


Target frame rate: AVE70, AVE90, MIN70, MIN90:
Requisite unified score (Metro 2033):

Low (DX10, AAA): 170/195/220/250
Medium (DX10, AAA): 185/200/240/255
High (DX10, AAA): 250/300/325/385
Very High (DX10, AAA): 360/665/465/855
Very High (DX11, AAA): 550/970/705/1245

so with AAA enabled, somewhere between Medium and High settings you'd probably manage alright with the 560. All high in 570, but still in DX10 mode.
 
I just played Metro 2033 to check my peak power usage and it was 330 watts, but after like 15 minutes it throttled up to 400+ which I found strange) In the tunnels and for the first 2 chapters/scenes or whatever it was usually 40-65 I'd say 55fps average. Sometimes in the darker scenes fps drops even lower.

When I played GRID with 16XQSSAA or whatever was getting 65-75 everything high/ultra. What card would put me 100+ in this game any ideas?

My gut kinda thinks get the 570GTX it will prob max out all my DX9 titles and Metro should get 80-100 I think??

Oh and another thing Oblivion with just Qarl Texture Pack peaks @ 730 MB for my setup I run HDR and Force 16 XQCSAA in Nvidia and 16AF, everything in game maxed out trees, distance land ect.. Here's my fraps bench.

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
18484, 276901, 0, 123, 66.753

Those recommended SKYRIM settings posted are most likely for 60FPS displays, that's what is mainstream not 120HZ like my display. So I need a card that can do about 2x what 1 260GTX can do, also there is texture popping for me on Oblivion like distant rocks and trees and the big bridge that connects the imperial city to Weyan. Maybe GDDR5 will eliminate texture popping or SSD? Oh well. Back to tinkering.
 
If you want to be sure, just get a 580.. i have 2x460GTX OC'd and the number of game that i do more than 90FPS is pretty much limited. GRID, yes, DIRT2, yes, L4D, HL2..

NOT metro.. i barely tap the 60fps with everything on to max.. (at 1080p)
 
You do not get anywhere near 60fps at max on Metro 2033 at 1080p with a single GTX580, and the same is true of two 460s. If you had everything maxed out, you'd barely get 20fps, often less.
 
If you're going for 70+ fps, you were probably being CPU limited in the easier scenes.
 
Can you Tri-SLI 260s? I didn't think they supported it. I'd say go for the 570 - it is the best performing card, and the price is decent (you said 1.5GB, but aren't all the 570s 1.25GB?). At that low resolution, 1GB should be plenty.
 
Why would you bother? Three GTX260s would barely outperform one GTX580 anyway, and they wouldn't outperform two 460s.
 
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